Holiday matcha treats don’t have to be packed with sugar to taste good. With the right combination of high-quality ingredients, you can make holiday matcha treats that taste good and are good for you. These matcha dark chocolate bites are full of omega-3 walnuts, along with antioxidant-rich matcha, coconut butter, and dried cranberries. Due to the caffeine content in the matcha and dark chocolate, these are best consumed in the morning or as an afternoon snack with coffee. They also travel very well (they don’t melt or get squished easily), and work great as a hiking snack to give you an extra energy boost.
Holiday Matcha Dark Chocolate Bites
Ingredients:
(For 1 ice cube tray of 12 “bites”)
Toppings:
- 1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup walnuts, crushed or chopped
Matcha Layer:
- 8 tbsp. solid coconut butter
- 1 tsp. matcha powder
Chocolate Layer:
- 16 squares (~13 g each) 72% Dark Chocolate at 10 g sugar for every 38 g serving (I used the Trader Joe’s brand—feel free to use a dark chocolate with a percent cocoa and sugar level you prefer)
Equipment:
- medium-sized pot
- stainless steel or glass bowl that can fit at least partway into the pot
- standard dozen ice cube tray
- rubber spatula
- small spoon
- toothpick
Instructions:
- Fill a medium-sized pot about a third of the way up with water and put on high heat to bring to a boil.
- While waiting for the water to boil, start sprinkling your toppings (the dried cranberries and crushed walnuts) evenly among the ice cube tray pockets.
- Once the water is boiling, lower the heat to maintain a gentle boil and put the coconut butter into the bowl. Place the bowl in the pot so that its bottom half is just above or slightly submerged in the water (but not touching the bottom of the pot, so you can avoid burning the coconut butter). You can hang onto the bowl (while wearing an oven mitt) to stabilize it as you swirl the melting coconut butter (about 10 minutes).
- After the coconut butter is completely melted (it will look very pasty at first, but just keep stirring–it can take a full 10 minutes to get to a glossier liquid state), sift and stir in the matcha powder. Once the mixture is an even green, turn off the heat.
- Using a small spoon, scoop the matcha mixture over the toppings in each ice cube tray pocket. Start with a small amount and then go back around refilling where needed to ensure each section gets an even amount of matcha mixture. You can use the tip of a butter knife to smooth out the layers afterwards as the mixture is a bit dense and can clump up.
- Place the tray into the freezer to let the matcha-toppings layer set and bring the water in your pot to a boil once again (you may need to refill the water).
- No need to dirty another bowl here; you can use the same bowl as before to now melt the dark chocolate (any remaining matcha mixture can just be folded in) over a gentle boil as with the coconut butter. The chocolate will melt faster; took me about 3 minutes to get to liquid state. Once the chocolate is lump free, turn off the heat.
- Take out your ice cube tray and spoon the melted chocolate into each pocket, apportioning evenly. Don’t worry about uneven surfaces yet; when you’ve distributed all the chocolate you can grasp both ends of the tray and give a few quick and firm thumps against your countertop to smooth it all out. If bubbles form, use a toothpick to pop them.
- And into the freezer the whole thing goes! Wait at least half an hour for the chocolate to set–you can clean up the kitchen in the meantime.
- After the chocolate has completely cooled, you can pop out each treat like you would a set of ordinary ice cubes.
